Swallowtail butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) species diversity and distribution in Africa: The Papilionidae collection at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

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Abstract

Species data from the Museum collections have been shown to be of great value as a tool for prioritising conservation actions in Africa (Fjeldsa and Tushabe 2005). The National Museums of Kenya (NMK) have an entomology collection, housed in 4,000 drawers in cabinets that contain over 1.5 million specimens, including the largest butterfly collection in Africa (Arnett et al. 1997). Lampe and Striebing (2005) demonstrated how to digitise large insect collections in order to make their associated label data into databases that can be used for functions, such as creating distribution maps. The NMK’s swallowtail butterflies' collection had not been digitised and thus there was a need to capture the label data to create a database that can be used for mapping the distribution of the species in Kenya and elsewhere. These data have addressed one of the most significant challenges to insect conservation i.e. the lack of baseline information concerning species diversity and distribution (Summerville and Crist 2003). These data have provided key historic papilionid species diversity and distribution data that can be used to monitor their populations, as butterflies are declining due to changes in land use, intensive agriculture and pestcide use, diseases and pest and climate change (Potts et al. 2016; Bongaarts 2019). The publication of the occurrence data records in GBIF has been undertaken, thus making the data available to a wider audience and promoting availability for use.

The swallowtail butterflies collection at the National Museums of Kenya was digitised from 2017–2019 and this paper presents details of the Papilionid collection at the Zoology Department, NMK, Nairobi, Kenya.

The collection holds 7,345 voucher specimens, consisting of three genera and 133 species. The collection covers the period between 1850 to 2019.

The distribution of the swallowtail butterflies, housed at the NMK, covers East Africa with 88%, Central Africa (6%), Western Africa (4%) and Southern Africa (2%).

Related collections

Most cited references 10

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Non-bee insects are important contributors to global crop pollination

Romina Rader, Ignasi Bartomeus, Lucas A Garibaldi … (2016)

Wild and managed bees are well documented as effective pollinators of global crops of economic importance. However, the contributions by pollinators other than bees have been little explored despite their potential to contribute to crop production and stability in the face of environmental change. Non-bee pollinators include flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, ants, birds, and bats, among others. Here we focus on non-bee insects and synthesize 39 field studies from five continents that directly measured the crop pollination services provided by non-bees, honey bees, and other bees to compare the relative contributions of these taxa. Non-bees performed 25-50% of the total number of flower visits. Although non-bees were less effective pollinators than bees per flower visit, they made more visits; thus these two factors compensated for each other, resulting in pollination services rendered by non-bees that were similar to those provided by bees. In the subset of studies that measured fruit set, fruit set increased with non-bee insect visits independently of bee visitation rates, indicating that non-bee insects provide a unique benefit that is not provided by bees. We also show that non-bee insects are not as reliant as bees on the presence of remnant natural or seminatural habitat in the surrounding landscape. These results strongly suggest that non-bee insect pollinators play a significant role in global crop production and respond differently than bees to landscape structure, probably making their crop pollination services more robust to changes in land use. Non-bee insects provide a valuable service and provide potential insurance against bee population declines.